1. Reservation of Copyright
The disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any one of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
2. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to certain types of online systems for providing vendors with contacts.
3. Description of Background Information
Communications systems facilitate the exchange of business information and business transactions based upon such information. With the advent of the Internet and the more frequent use of online systems, vendors and consumers are exchanging information, entering into transactions, and documenting those transactions online. Automated online systems allow a vendor to provide services to a customer at the consumer's behest, while minimizing the cost of a transaction between the vendor and the consumer. They also make it easier to match vendors offering certain services at a specified price with consumers seeking that service at the specified price. Online systems also help find comparable products and services at the lowest price.
Much effort is being expended to improve and optimize online insurance systems. Companies providing online insurance systems include Intuit Insurance Services, Insweb, Progressive, and GeicoDirect, just to name a few. The Intuit Insurance Services' webpage is at www.insuremarket.com, and allows a consumer to obtain life insurance quotes and automobile insurance quotes within minutes. Quotes can also be obtained for other insurance types, such as medical insurance, home insurance, disability income insurance, long-term care insurance, small business insurance, annuities, and supplemental health insurance.
The automobile portion of this site poses a number of questions to a consumer in an online questionnaire. Once the questionnaire is filled out, the consumer can optionally obtain immediate comparative quote information indicating the rates offered by various insurance carriers. The consumer can also obtain agent information for certain insurance carriers.
There is need for improved online automobile insurance systems that can provide a more immediate connection between agents for certain insurance carriers and the consumer. For example, when a consumer obtains a quote by a given insurance carrier, the consumer may wish to pursue the purchase of a policy through an agent for that carrier. However, the consumer may experience inconveniences in contacting the agent, and may need to provide the agent with all of the consumer's information anew.